It's A Familiar Story For UE Sopron

UE Sopron ended their EuroLeague Women regular season with another defeat at the death, this time going down 74-68 to Nadezhda to leave their hopes of making the play-offs looking bleak.

The Hungarian outfit must now wait nervously on news from France and hope their main rivals for fifth spot, Municipal Targoviste, fall at Arras since a win for the visitors would see them eliminated.

The story of the season for Sopron has been their consistent failure to win close contests, this latest disappointment taking the total of games lost by six points or less to seven.

It was a performance which perfectly encapsulated both their good and bad points. Despite their poor perimeter shooting, this time going one-for-16 from downtown, they still managed to keep themselves in contention with their usual exemplary ball-handling skills and competent defence.

Having worryingly fallen 29-20 behind, Sopron scored 11 of the next 12 points to take the lead, getting the home crowd on their feet.

However, it came down to who would execute in the clutch and the answer was Nadezhda who took the win by calmly sinking seven-of-eight free-throws leading up until the final buzzer.

The Russian club also welcomed back Dewanna Bonner who had recently been absent having had to attend to family affairs and it was a first victory for newly installed head coach Algirdas Paulauskas.